


Hidden Scars

by DragonSaphiraReads



Series: Fluffuary 2020 [10]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Description of burns, Human AU, mention of being stuck in a burning building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:21:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22652425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonSaphiraReads/pseuds/DragonSaphiraReads
Summary: After suffering in an accident, Ernest is worried that his fiancee no longer wants to be with him.
Relationships: Morality | Patton Sanders/Deceit Sanders
Series: Fluffuary 2020 [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1619986
Comments: 2
Kudos: 61





	Hidden Scars

**Author's Note:**

> Like listening to podfics? You can listen to this oneshot on my YT channel here https://youtu.be/pfZnazkE5Us

_Hot. Flames clawing up the walls, through doors, surrounding him. Everything collapsing around him. His leg caught against a scrap of heated metal, and he tripped as pain surged up his calf._

_He tried to scream, in pain or for help he didn’t know, but he couldn’t force out a sound. Then the ceiling cracked loudly, and the last thing he saw was a flaming wooden beam as it crashed down..._

Ernest shot awake, hyperventilating as he tried to calm down from the dream. His skin grafts and scars ached from his thrashing around, and his right hand was tangled in the bedsheets from his desperate attempt to reach for help. 

He heard footsteps rushing down the hall, and Ernest quickly schooled his breathing to a normal level as his fiancee opened the bedroom door, coming to his side. 

“Are you alright sweetheart? I heard you shouting.” Patton asked, his bright blue eyes full of concern. Ernest nodded, grabbing onto Patton to pull himself into a sitting position. 

“I’m fine... just a dream, nothing more. I need a shower though.” He lied, getting to his feet and holding onto the bed to keep from collapsing. Patton offered his arm, but Ernest refused, walking on his own to retrieve a change of clothes. 

“If you’re sure about that... Is there anything I can do before I leave?” Patton asked, and Ernest shook his head just a little too quickly. 

“Don’t worry about it, love. I’ll be just fine.” Ernest told him, swallowing the lump in his throat. “You should get going, you don’t want to be late because of me.”

Patton chewed his lip, glancing at the clock on the nightstand. “You’re probably right... but text me if you need anything, ok? I can always work from home!”

Ernest shook his head, waving him off as he went to the bathroom. “You know I will, darling. Be safe driving.”

“I will. Love you!” Patton called as he left the bedroom and Ernest closed the bathroom door, leaning against the counter as he let his facade drop. 

Two months. Two whole months had gone by since the day Ernest’s office building had caught on fire, and he’d gotten stuck under burning rubble. The man glanced up to look at his reflection with his remaining good eye. 

The entire left side of his face had suffered from third degree burns. The skin grafts hadn’t healed over smoothly, leaving him with a freckled, almost mottled texture to his cheek. His left eye had also been damaged beyond repair, and he could no longer see anything out of it. 

The rest of his body had faired slightly better, healing much faster than his face. Even so, there was a clear line of scar tissue where the burns had healed. 

The doctors told him the damage would fade over time, and physically he knew that was true. Eventually those lines would dim, eventually his grafts would be indistinguishable from the rest of his skin. 

Physically, he would heal. 

Emotionally, he was starting to believe he would never heal from the traumatic event. He’d spoken with a therapist at the beginning, while he was receiving treatment for his burns. Ernest had been told to schedule a followup when he felt he was ready to begin unpacking what had happened. 

At first, he hadn’t thought he’d need it. Yes, he was in pain, but he had his wonderful fiancee that was so supportive and loving and he had thought that that would be enough. 

But Patton had grown distant in the months since the accident. It started when he moved to sleep in the guest bedroom, allowing Ernest the full bed to sleep in. The first week or two he’d appreciated it - even the soft sheets brushing against his skin felt like fire. If Patton had accidentally hit him in his sleep, it would have been agonizing. 

However, he hadn’t moved back in the weeks since then. Besides that, he’d also grown less intimate with him. Even innocent small things like holding his hand or giving him a peck on the cheek were rarities. 

What was worst of all, was that he had stopped wearing his wedding ring after the accident. It was as if he had fallen out of love, but was too kind to tell Ernest honestly.

A tear welled up in his right eye, and he quickly turned on the shower and stepped inside to pretend it was only water running down his face. 

It hurt worse than any burns he could imagine. He loved Patton more than anything or anyone he had ever met in his life. Patton had saved him countless times just with his thousand watt smile. To think that he might lose the love of his life...

He’d rather be stuck in that burning building again.

~

Ernest had been careless. Normally, if he took a nap, he always did it early in the day, so he would be wide awake when Patton got home. He wasn’t ready to be working a job again yet, so he did his best to keep the house in order and make sure Patton didn’t have to worry about anything. 

But this afternoon he’d been overcome by a wave of exhaustion, and he fell into a deep enough sleep to start dreaming again. 

Flashes of fire flickered through his otherwise serene dreams, until they started devolving into terrifying images that made him break into a sweat and cry out in his sleep. When the dream showed him the image of Patton stuck under burning rubble with Ernest unable to move and help him, he felt a tongue of fire land on his shoulder and he bolted awake, nearly hitting Patton in the face. 

“Ernest! Are you ok?!” Ernest blinked at him, knowing he was crying and had no chance of hiding that from Patton. 

“I... I’m...” He tried to reassure him, tell him these dreams were normal and he could handle them, but he met Patton’s eyes and he knew he couldn’t lie to him anymore. 

“Ernest, please, you have to talk to me. I know you’ve been having nightmares every night, and I want to help you! Please, what can I do for you?”

“Patton...” Ernest whispered, and the other man moved closer. “Do you... still love me?”

“W-What? Of course I do!”

“Really?” Ernest hated how accusatory it came out. Patton’s eyes flashed with hurt for a moment. 

“Yes!”

“I don’t believe you!” 

Patton reeled back at the sudden anger, and Ernest’s heart panged at the sight of it but he couldn’t stop the flood of emotions.

“You say you do... you say it every day... but you... you don’t mean it anymore! You can’t mean it! I can’t... can’t believe...”

“Ernest... where is this coming from?” His fiancee asked softly, and Ernest felt tears start to fall from his right eye.

“You’ve barely touched me at all since... since... you don’t hold my hand, or kiss me... we don’t even sleep in the same bed anymore!” 

Then his arm shot out and he grabbed Patton’s hand, pointing at his bare ring finger. “And this...”

“Ernest, stop.” 

Patton’s tone was stern, but comforting. Ernest shifted as Patton wrapped him up in a hug, and it only took a moment before he completely lost it, letting out everything he’d been bottling up for two full months. 

“To start... I’m sorry I made you feel like I didn’t love you anymore. I want you to know that you’re the most important person in my life, and I would never mean to hurt you.”

“So... why?”

Patton sighed. “Well, for the bed thing, I guess I just got settled into a routine. I knew you were suffering from nightmares, and I thought it would be best if you had the bed to yourself. And I stopped being intimate with you because I was worried I was going to accidentally hurt you.”

Ernest sniffed. “I’m not that fragile, you know!”

His fiancee nodded, running his thumb over Ernest’s knuckles. “I know, I know. But, Ernest, I don’t know if you understand how scared I was... When I got the call that your work had caught fire, and that you had been hospitalized... I thought I was surely going to lose you, and I didn’t know what to do.”

He blew out a breath, and Ernest could tell he was holding back tears himself. “Seeing you in that hospital bed, covered in bandages... I didn’t know what to do with myself. I just wanted to cry. But then, one of the nurses told me that I should try and make sure to keep things normal, and not bring it up until you were ready...”

“Patton... you know me. That was shit advice to follow.”

Patton laughed. “Yeah, I should have thought about that a little more.”

“And... the ring?”

He put a hand to his neck, reaching under his shirt to pull out a chain that Ernest hadn’t noticed. Hanging from the small chain was Patton’s ring. 

“They told me they had to cut your ring off because your hand swelled too much, and it wasn’t able to be repaired... I wanted to get you a new one before I started wearing mine again, so I wouldn’t make you sad because you didn’t have one...”

Ernest stared at the chain. “You could have told me...”

“I should have. I didn’t think it would take this long to get a replacement. And I should have told you about the other stuff too. I guess... I was just worried about bringing it up. I didn’t want to do anything that would make it worse for you.”

They both fell silent, holding each other and letting their tears dry on their cheeks. 

“So... you still want to get married?”

Patton laughed, leaning in and pressing a soft kiss to Ernest’s right cheek. “Yes, sweetheart. It would take so much more than this to make me change my mind. You’re stuck with me, don’t ever forget that.”

Ernest snickered with him, holding onto him for a little while longer. Eventually they got up to eat dinner, and spent the evening talking. Then that night, Patton laid down beside him in bed, and Ernest had his first dreamless sleep in months.


End file.
